Leaving and Living
by Claire2
Summary: Two of the gang leave and try to get a new life
1. Default Chapter

Leaving and living

*~*~*~*~*~*

**Author****:** Claire

**E-mail**: _clairinette14@aol.com_

**Disclaimer:** I wish they were mine. Sadly they're not. They belong to these wonderful people, Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, UPN and lots of other that I don't know of. So don't sue, ok? I'm just borrowing them anyway.

**Summary:** I won't tell. You'll have to read if you want to find out.

**Rating:** PG, PG-13 maybe. I have a problem with those rating stuff. I never know which one it is.

**Author's note:** The style is different from what I am used to do, but maybe eventually it will change a bit more in my style. Don't know yet.

~Thoughts of Laura. 

~(=Translation of French to English)

*~*~*~*~*~* 

**Part 1**

*~*~*~*~*~* 

'Don't look back. Do not look back. You mustn't look back. If you look back, it will all be over. Run. Keep running. Run as fast as you can. And never look back.'

"What are you doing?"

_'Shit. Keep going. Let him think you didn't noticed him.'_

"I said what are you doing?"

_'Shit. He won't leave it.'_

"Leave me alone."

"No. Tell me what you're doing. Where are you running? What are you running from?"

_'You wanna know? Okay, I'm gonna tell you.'_

"Leaving. Far away. From… betrayal."

_'Right to the point, as always.'_

"Betrayal?"

_'It hurts.'_

"Yes. They betrayed me. They betrayed you, too."

_'I said it. But it still hurts.'_

"No. I knew it was gonna happen, but I still hoped. So, they really betrayed us, didn't they?"

_'Welcome to reality.'_

"They did. I'm leaving now."

"No, wait."

_'I have to hurry. I don't want them to know me.'_

"I have to go."

_'They can't know.'_

"I'll come with you."

'They betrayed him too. He shouldn't stay with them. I don't want to be alone. We'll help each other, 'till the pain leaves. If it leaves.'

"Okay."

*~*~*~*~*~* 

Two years later 

'I never thought we'd be coming here. I always wanted to come here. Maybe not under those circumstances. We're happy now. Well… it's the closest thing to happiness you can get when your heart is broken.'

"Laura?"

'That's my name now. When we got here, we thought it'd be better to forget if we started everything again. A new life, with new names.'

"Right here, Antoine."

'I like his new name. It's different from… before. From the past. It's sounds more French. Very different from his old name.'

"Oh. I was looking for you."

'I already guessed that.'

"Why?"

"Oh, there's a new restaurant down the street, and since there's nothing in the fridge…"

'Damn. I was the one supposed to-' 

"No! Don't worry, it's okay! I just guessed we could try it, you know. We don't go out that much lately... so…"

'I wonder how he does this. It's always like he's reading my thoughts… well, maybe he is. I never exactly knew what he could do. He won't tell me. Too much memories here.'

"Oh, okay. I'm really sorry, though. I'll finish this, then we can go, ok?"

"Okay."

_'I look back at the screen before me. I'm writing an e-mail. Not to anyone. To one of my friends, back there. I never say the town's name anymore. Not since we left anyway. Neither one of their name. Too painful. Anyway… So I'm writing an e-mail. It's the first time am going to e-mail one of them, to make contact with one of them. I wasn't able to before, before we met Guillaume. I didn't want for them to know where we are, nor that we're there together, for that matter. But Guillaume is a real computer nerd. He's a genius actually. It's him who helped us learn French. So he's a real computer nerd, maybe more than… um… never mind. And he found a way for me to e-mail without any of them knowing where I am. Even better, they can't e-mail me if I have never e-mail them before. I don't know how he managed to do that, but they can only reply to me. They can't wrote whenever they want. They just got one reply for each e-mail I send. That way, I don't got undesirable mail._

_I mean, I haven't tried yet, but that's what Guillaume told me it would do. I just have one more thing to do. I look at the screen. I take a deep breath. I haven't told them anything special. Except that I'm safe. And happy. It's true. No, scratch that. It's not true. I'm safe, but not as happy as I could be. Anyway, I don't tell them about our new names, neither that Antoine's here with me. They don't need to now. Antoine doesn't want them to know. He doesn't want anything to do with any of them for that matter. So it's better that way. I take another breath, and I close my eyes. Click. I open my eyes. There's a message on the screen. __*message envoyé*__ (=message sent) __I've done it. I let the breath I was holding out.'_

"Okay, 'toine, we can go. I'm done."

'But am I really done with that part of my life?' 

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Salut Laura, Antoine, ça va ? " _(=Hey, Laura, Antoine, how are you ?)_

'I'm shaking. I'm scared. I just did something I was dying to do for two years. Thanks to you.'

"Oh, ouais, Guillaume, ça va. En fait… Je viens juste d'essayer ton système d'e-mails." _(=Oh, Guillaume, we're fine. Actually… I just tried your e-mail system)_

"Tu l'as essayé?" _(=You tried it?)_

"Ouais. Antoine, I'm really sorry, I didn't tell you because you said you didn't want to-"

"No, it's okay Laura. I understand."

"Euh, les gars, ça vous dérangeraient pas de parler français un peu. Je ne comprends rien du tout." _(=Um, Guys, could you speak French, coz I don't understand anything.)_

"Oh, oui, désolé." _(=Oh, yeah, sorry.)_

'Poor Guillaume. Sometime when the situation tenses a bit like that, Antoine and I kind of forget to speak French when he's with us. He doesn't speak a word of English. Actually I still wonder how he managed to teach us French when he didn't even speak English. That's weird. Anyway, when we speak English, it's not that we don't want him to know what we're talking about. He knows almost everything about us. Where we're from, why we left, who are our friends etc… It's just that we… forget.'

"C'est pas grave. Alors, ça à marché comme tu voulais ?" _(=It's okay. So, it worked out the way you wanted?)_

"Je ne sais pas pour l'instant. J'espère. On verra bien de toute façon." _(=I don't know yet. I hope. We'll see anyway.)_

"Oh, fait Guillaume, on allait au nouveau resto qui vient d'ouvrir. Tu te joins à nous ? C'est Laura qui paye de toute façon." _(=By the way Guillaume, we were going to that new restaurant that just opened. Come with us? It's on Laura anyway.)_

'Ok, I don't remember saying that. But it's ok. I was going to pay anyway. After all, I owe them both.'

"C'est bien parce que c'est vous, les gars." _(=If it weren't for you, guys, I wouldn't do it.)_

'And I smile. Lately I've come to realize something. I'm not sure what it means exactly. But Whenever I'm with Guillaume and Antoine, I smile more often; I laugh a whole lot more. In the year and a half we've know Guillaume, he's become our new best friend. He's almost like a brother to us. And since he lives next door, we happen to see each other a lot. I don't know what I would have done if I had left without… without Antoine. I would have never come here in the first place. And I would have never met Guillaume. My life… would be miserable.'

*~*~*~*~*~*

'Again, we had a wonderful time tonight. It's not surprising, thought. We always have a wonderful time when it's the three of us. Although my mind was wandering to the mail I sent earlier. But I almost forget about it when Antoine and I surprised Guillaume drooling over our waitress. We saw he quickly looked away when he noticed he'd been caught staring at her. But it didn't keep us from teasing him for the rest of the night.'

'As I enter my room, I'm tempted to check my mail. But I don't. I don't know why. Maybe I think it's too soon. Maybe I think they didn't get it yet. Maybe… maybe I'm afraid to be disappointed. So I don't check it. I directly change into my pjs and slide under the covers of my bed. And I sleep. Well, at least I try to. But I can't. I just can't sleep. It's too hard. I have to check it. It just hit me. I have to check it. Then maybe I'll be able to sleep. So I get up, and I look at the damned computer.  I turn it on. And I wait. And I wait. Damn, it takes like forever for the damn machine to wake up. Finally, it's done. I sit down, and I go online. As soon as the window of my mail account open, my heart skips a beat. There's no mail. But I was so sure that… I'm so disappointed. I look at the time. It's only 10pm. You could say I was bed early but it has become a habit since we moved here. Anyway, it's only 10pm here, which means that it's around 3 or 4pm back there. They might be still working. Or at school. I don't even know what they're doing. But one thing is for sure. I'm starting to hope again. Because I'm almost sure they didn't get my mail, yet. Well, it will probably be a few more hours before I even got a chance for them to read my mail. I might as well go back to sleep. I don't turn the computer off. I don't go off line. It's unlimited anyway. But if I got an e-mail while I'm sleeping, I want to be able to hear the 'you've got mail' Guillaume told me there would be. I feel more relaxed, and I finally drift off to sleep.'

*~*~*~*~*~*

TBC…

So? Did you guessed who're Laura and Antoine? I bet you have! You're all so smart! (ok, that's true, I just said that hoping you would leave feedback. Did it work?)

 Please, please review! Feedback is more than welcome.


	2. 

A/N: Alysha, you're the only one who find out who were Laura and Antoine (But Only after several try!) But don't worry everyone, you'll learn it in this part.

*~*~*~*~*~*

**Part 2**

*~*~*~*~*~*

**As Laura not so quietly falls asleep, a girl sits at her computer, thousands of miles away…**

She'd had a very bad day. She just wanted to relax. And yet, she knew something big was gonna happen soon, really soon. As soon as the window on her screen opened, she felt her pulse fastening. She just… had this feeling. It was worrying her. She absently clicked on a link, and another window opened. A message appeared. *You've got mail!* She quickly scanned the addresses, and saw one that she didn't know. The feeling again… After opening that particular message, who had no topic, she slowly read the message, a look of disbelief appearing on her face. The color drained of her face. After a few minutes for the realization to sank in, she picked up her cell, and dialed a familiar number, her eyes never leaving the screen, as if afraid it would have been a dream. After a few seconds, someone answered.

"Hi. It's me… I've got news… Yeah, right before my very eyes… Meet me with everyone else at my house in 15 minutes… yeah." She hanged up the phone. And she waited, her eyes never leaving the screen, reading the mail again and again. It was pretty short, but still. She had waited for this two years. She couldn't believe it had actually happened. She was in some sort of trance when the other arrived. She barely acknowledged them, her eyes still on the screen.

They looked at her worriedly.

"Hey, what's wrong? You said you had news, about… them."

She finally turned to the group of people in her room. Looking at two particular person, she said slowly:

"Not from them… from her." She looked back at the screen, as tears, both of joy and disappointment welled in her eyes, as well as in the other people's eyes.

Looking at one of the girl, she said:

"I'm sorry, you know, but she didn't mentioned him. I really don't know about him."

The girl nodded, wiping a tear away.

"Um… Can we read?"

She smiled weakly.

"Of course." 

They slowly approached her, and the began to read silently. As they finished, one of the guy spoke.

"Maybe I… Maybe I could trace them… er… her."

"You can try. But I don't think it'll work. You know if she said that she didn't want any of us to find her, then I don't think she would have take the risk of e-mailing us, knowing you and your knowledge with computers..."

"I can still try." He repeated stubbornly.

"Okay…"

"It might take some time," he added. She nodded in understanding.

"Come on, you guys. We'll let him work calmly." With that, she exited the room, followed by the rest of the group.

She lead them to lounge, where everyone sat silently on the couch and armchairs. Finally, on of the two boys, the one with darker hair, spoke.

"Do you think… Do you think that… that he'll be able to find her?" he asked, hope rising in his voice.

Everyone turned to him.

"I… I don't know. I hope so, but I really don't know." 

Another girl spoke,

"I think he will. I'm sure he'll find them. I trust him for something like that." They all looked at her, willing her assurance, but not wanting to be too disappointed… in case… in case they couldn't find her.

Trying to change the subject, the guy with the dark hair spoke again:

"Um… what… what are you gonna write in the reply?"

The girl looked taken aback. 

"I… Uh… I don't know… I mean, I hadn't… I hadn't though about it yet. But… I'll let… everyone write her something. I think we all deserve it."

He looked at her, and softly replied:

"Thank you."

*~*~*~*~*~*

**25 minutes later**

"Hey, you Guys!"

They all turned to stare at him.

"Did you… Did you find anything?" asked the dark-haired boy.

"Well, I'm going to say that I have some bad and good news. "

"Which are… ?"

"Okay, first, she was true, it's impossible to find where this mail has been sent from."

They all looked at him with disappointed looks.

"But, I did find something interesting."

"And that would be…?"

"I found the date and hour of sending."

"Oh, yeah, that's really helpful –" replied the only guy who hadn't spoke, yet.

"Yes it is! Because what I've found is really interesting. Because according to the hour –the date is today's-, this message hadn't been send yet!"

They all looked at him with confused looks.

"Oh come on! It's been sent at 8pm, today! Or, it's only 7pm, in case you haven't remarked."

Seeing that everyone still looked confused, he continued.

"Plus, it's say that you've received the mail at 1pm. And I thought you were smart!"

"Okay, what's the matter, we received it a few hours before it was sent?"

"No, I mean yes… um, it's been sent at 1pm, in the USA!"

The dark-haired boy finally started to understand, and he whispered:

"Time difference!"

"Exactly! Damn, you took your time on this one!"

Now, everyone was starting to understand.

"So, according to the time difference, and knowing her, it would mean that –"

"Liz is in Europe." Finished the dark-haired boy.

*~*~*~*~*~*

*Beep! Vous avez un message!* (=You've got mail!)

'Damn it! What's that? What time is it? Uh? It's 3am? What was – Oh my god. Was I dreaming or did I really heard *Vous avez un message*? Oh my god… Wow! How have I done? I don't remember moving from my bed, but I'm now in front of my computer. My hand is on the mouse, but I can't… I can't open that window… If I do it, maybe, maybe I'll find out something that I don't want to find out. Maybe she… maybe none of them want to hear about me anymore… I take a deep, very deep breath. There's only one way to find out.'

**Email**

            Lizzie, you can't believe how much I missed you. I didn't believe it when I read your mail. I wanted to jump up and down, like crazy with joy. But then, I don't understand. Why don't you want us to find you? Where are you?…Why did you… left? Chica, I miss you so much. My life is like hell without my best friend. Please, don't let me out of your life anymore.

'Okay, it hurts to know that I hurt her so much. But I had to. I keep reading.'

            I sincerely hope that you'll keep e-mailing me. And… I hope you don't care, but I let everyone write you something, too.

'Oh my god! Who does she mean by ~everyone~?'

            I love you girl. Bye.

                        Maria D.

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Hey Liz! It's been quite some time! I don't really know what to say to you… Just that… There are people who care about you here. And we miss you, okay? Don't tell anyone I said that. And, well… Max… He miss you like crazy, girl.

Okay, I've got to go, it's Isabel turn, now, she's… hey! She's pushing me!

            Bye Liz. Michael.

'… Max… Max miss me. Way a lot of crap here. Okay, my good mood's down now.'

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Hey Liz, I had to push Michael, he was bugging the computer. He wrote what? 3 lines? And yet he bugged the computer for 15 minutes! Anyway… So, how are you? We're fine but you miss us… a lot. Especially to someone… You know you tore his heart apart when you left, don't you? You know, I still don't know why you left. You were the one who kept us together, at first. You were… the glue. No kidding, it's thanks to you that I have all this wonderful people in my life… Or had, for some of them. You, Maria, Kyle… and Alex. Alex. I'll never thank you enough for Alex. He's my strength now. Thank you.                                                     Love,                                                                                                                                   Isabel.

'Wow wow! Where went the Ice queen? I'm so glad for her and Alex. But I still don't get what's wrong with them. I mean first Michael, then Isabel… Am I the only one who hasn't forgive Max about… Or Am I the only one who knows?'

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Hi Lizzie. I hope you don't mind, but I still checked to see if I could find a failure in your mail. I didn't.

'Thank you Guillaume!'

            You have to forgive me. It's just that I, no, we, we miss you so much. Chica, are you ever going to come back? Why did you leave anyway? I miss you. You can't keep of doing this to us. Although I know that you surely left for some good reason, I still hope to see you sat in a booth at the Crashdown whenever I come in. And I'm not the only one…                                                                                 I still don't know how you managed to get this thing with your e-mail. Did someone helped you? If so, you'll really have to introduce him (or her)!!!!                      I hope you're fine, and remember that I love you girl.

                        Alex.

'I love you too Alex!'

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Hey. I don't know what else to say. It's just… you might think this is a bit akward. I mean we've never really been friends but…

'Oh my god. Please tell me this isn't who I think it is…'

            I really wish we could be. If you come back, that is. I don't know why you left. No one knows. Not even Maria. Not even Alex… Not even Max. I just don't hope you left because of me. I guess I screwed some things in your life… well, maybe more than some things…

'It's her! How dares she?'

            I'm really sorry. I wish it could be different. I wish you and Kyle never left. 

                                               Tess.

'… I'm lost. What is she trying to do? Is it a trap? Of course it is. I know it. That girl is evil. It's all because of her. It's because of her that I'm far from my real home, far from my parents, far from my friends, Maria, Alex, even Michael and Isabel. My parents… I haven't seen them in so long. It's been a month since I last talk to them. They know where I am. Where Ky- Where Antoine is. I made them swear never to told anyone (except Jim) where we were. At first they though that Antoine and I were an item. We told them we weren't, but they still thinks so… I guess. So they promised. And they never told any of our friends where we were, neither that they knew where we were, or that we were fine etc… They let them think that they didn't know more than them… They're good actors. Anyway… It's Max's fault, too. I admitted that a long time ago. The night we left… Oh! There's another message… I wonder…'

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            I remember once someone telling me to follow my heart. And it was such a good advice… Or so I thought. So tell me Liz, was it your heart telling you to love Kyle, or was it your head? And was it your heart telling you to leave? I wish your heart could have tell you that you could trust me. You could have told me why you wanted to leave, where you wanted to leave… whom with. Even if you didn't love me anymore; I could've been your friend. It would've been hard, but not harder that not hearing about you at all in two years. I would have done it for you. Just to be in your life. But you didn't give me that chance, and left without saying goodbye. I hope this time you'll be able to trust me. I still hope you'll be back some day. So I hope. And I wait.

                        Love, Max. 

'I just stare at the screen, my heart screaming, but my mind blank. My heart is screaming 'I love you! Why did I left?' That's when my mind start to react. Because he betrayed me. That's why I left. And that's why I'll stay away. I need some time to register everything. So I get up and I… I don't know. What do I do now? Do I reply right now? No, I don't think that would be such a good idea. My mind is too fuzzy, it would betray me. Do I talk to Kyle about it. I'm so confused, I just called Antoine by his old name. Anyway, I won't tell him, not right now at least. I'll let him sleep. I'll tell him tomorrow. Maybe. So what do I do now? Nothing. Maybe I should go back to sleep. But I know I won't be able to sleep. I might as well watch TV. Yeah. So I turn the TV on, and I put MTV on. It's the only English channel I got. I watch it because it reminds me of the many sleepover I had with Maria and Alex. We would always talk all night, and laugh, and have fun, while watching some concert on MTV. We were also planning our future. We thought we had one together, the three of us. When I was still Liz Parker. Tonight I want to be Liz Parker. So I watch MTV. Too bad Maria and Alex aren't here.'

TBC…


End file.
